


Baker Street Papas

by sanguinity



Series: sang's moreholmes [7]
Category: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (TV 1980)
Genre: First Kiss, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8113597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: Holmes stood; the infant steadied itself with a fistful of his waistcoat. “Watson, I am given to understand that this is—”“Violet Victoria Mary Smith-Watson,” I said, hearing the death knell of my easy, bachelor life with Holmes.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [language_escapes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/gifts).



> For those unfamiliar with it, the 1979-80 TV show starring Geoffrey Whitehead and Donald Pickering had the same producers as the 1954 TV series (and some of the same scripts), but Whitehead and Pickering's characterisations are drier and more reserved than Howard and Crawford's. "Baker Street Papas" occasionally references "[Baker Street Nursemaids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivPTAQWE3nc&ab_channel=ClockworkWolf)," but spoilers are light, and no knowledge of the episode is needed.
> 
> Content warning for guns, blood, medicinal narcotics, period-typical colonialism, and a more devil-may-care approach to research than is my usual. Not Brit-picked, because I couldn't bear to ask the favour for 17K of kid fic. (If anyone wishes to volunteer, I'd happily accept!) 
> 
> Many thanks to phoenixfalls and grrlpup for beta.
> 
> Happy birthday, Language-Escapes! I hope it was worth the wait.

Breakfast was cooling unattended when I came into the sitting room, and I saw Mrs Hudson had once again put the marmalade by me. It was a beautiful morning; I moved the bowl nearer to Holmes’ place.

“Good morning, Watson!” Holmes greeted me, emerging from his room. “I didn’t know you had family in India.”

“Family in _India?”_ I asked, already looking around for whatever had prompted Holmes’—for once, incorrect—inference.

Ah, the morning post had already been delivered. I left the table to investigate: a thick letter lay on top, addressed to me. “How curious. I don’t know anyone in Calcutta.”

Holmes shrugged, obviously more interested in the contents of the marmalade bowl than the contents of my envelope. I sliced it open: several formal documents were folded inside, along with a covering letter from a solicitor’s firm. They respectfully informed me—

I frowned and went back to the top.

I eventually became aware of Holmes putting a cup of tea into my hand, and I took it gratefully. One really shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of thing before tea.

“Bad news, old chap?” he asked.

Still reading, I shook my head. Not in answer to Holmes, but in flat rejection of what was written on the page.

Sadly, the second page was no better.

“Watson?”

I looked up blankly. Holmes was watching me in open concern. I swallowed back the rest of my tea, burning my tongue in the process, then distractedly glanced about for somewhere to put the cup. Holmes took it from me, and I folded the pages back into their envelope. “I have to see my solicitor,” I announced, and reached for my jacket.

Holmes already had it in hand, open and waiting. “Would you like reinforcements?” he asked, easing it up and over my stiff shoulder. He turned to the coat stand, his hand poised between his own overcoat and mine.

“Ah, no,” I said, suddenly chagrined at his concern. I tucked the envelope away in an inner pocket. “It’s just a family matter. Nothing you need bother yourself about.”

His brows went up at that, but he handed me my overcoat and hat without further comment.

I didn’t return to Baker Street until noon, still not having breakfasted and feeling much wilted from my frankly frustrating interview with the solicitor. I let myself in the street door and politely greeted Mrs Hudson, who was passing through the front hall.

She fixed me with a glare. “Dr Watson. I’ve put up with much unorthodoxy from you and Mr Holmes these past years, but I’ll thank you to remember that this is a respectable house.”

I drew myself up, casting my eyes over the stair, the hall, and Mrs Hudson herself, looking for clues as to what had lit her ire. Nothing presented itself. “What has he done now?” I asked, readying myself to do battle with either Holmes or Mrs Hudson—or, more exhausting and more likely, the both of them in alternation—for our continued housing.

She laughed incredulously. “‘What has he done now,’ he asks! It’s what _you’ve_ been doing, doctor, and won’t be doing anymore, if you expect to continue living here.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a peremptory finger. “Ah!” she warned, and I judiciously closed my mouth again. “Just you mind my words, Dr Watson. I have overlooked many things in the past, but I am by no means prepared to overlook everything _._ This is a _respectable_ house.”

“Of course,” I agreed, and she swept away. I stared after her. I had not the slightest idea what I had done that was so objectionable. I turned the matter over as I climbed the stairs to our rooms.

“Holmes,” I said, as I let myself into our sitting room, “I have just had the most extraordinary—”

I stopped.

Holmes was dandling a baby, not yet a year old, on his knee. His smile lit the room, as it often did when there was a baby in proximity. “Ah, Watson! You’re here, excellent.”

The baby turned to stare at me balefully.

I levelled an inquiring finger at the child. To my consternation, my finger trembled, and so I folded it away again. “Is that…?”

Holmes turned back to the child. “Miss Violet,” he addressed it politely, and I blanched. “May I present your—” He paused and looked to me for guidance. “Cousin, I believe? I fancy she has something of you about the ears.” He took my silence as confirmation, and addressed the baby again. “Yes, your cousin John.”

The baby gurgled something, and Holmes smiled wider. “Oh, yes, I agree, he has very handsome ears. You did very well for yourself, there.” He stood, casually sitting the baby in the crook of his arm as if he did this every day. The child steadied itself with a fistful of his waistcoat. “Watson, I am given to understand that this is—”

“Violet Victoria Mary Smith-Watson,” I said, hearing the death knell of my easy, bachelor life with Holmes.

“Ah. I thought this might not be news.” Baby and fellow lodger advanced upon me. Involuntarily, I found myself retreating a step. Holmes paused where he was.

“How is this possible?” I asked.

He smiled blandly. “You’re the medical man. I would have thought you well up on—”

“I only first learned of her this morning!” My indignation gave me energy, and I stripped off coat and hat and hung them both. “The solicitors wrote in advance, they said, so that I might have time to make arrangements. How can she be here already?”

“Well,” Holmes shrugged, “a storm here, a fair wind there, and who knows when the ships will arrive. You should spend some time at Lloyd’s, it’s quite enlightening.”

A traveling trunk stood in the corner with a white wicker bassinet on top. The bassinet at least was a step up from the picnic hamper the previous baby had arrived in. “Please tell me this one arrived with a nurse.”

“Oh, yes. Charming Hindu woman, doesn’t speak much English. She seemed as competent as one might wish—Miss Violet here came through the passage admirably, don’t you think?” He stroked the child’s hair, and she gave off frowning at me to look up at him. For a few seconds, the pair smiled into each other’s faces.

“Well, a nurse is something, I suppose,” I said, throwing myself into an armchair. I wasn’t yet ready to cross the Rubicon of actually attempting to touch the child.

“Unfortunately, she didn’t stay.”

“Didn’t stay!?” I gawped at him. “Holmes! Why ever did you let her leave?”

He gave me a reproving look. “I can’t very well detain someone against her will.”

“Well, where did she go?”

“Off with Mrs Collingswood, I presume.”

“And who,” I asked, trying to keep my temper in check, “is Mrs Collingswood? And Holmes, if you allowed her to take the nurse, why ever didn’t you get her to take the _baby_ , too?”

“Your own flesh and blood, Watson? I expected stronger family feeling in you.” He was enjoying himself at my expense, and my glare did nothing to quell his good humour. “As I understand it, Captain Collingswood served with the late Lt. Smith-Watson—my condolences, my dear boy.” I huffed, as I had never heard of Lt. Smith-Watson before that morning. “The regiment kindly took in Miss Violet after her—and your—unfortunate bereavement. But as they understood Miss Violet to have surviving family in England, and as Mrs Collingswood was already bringing her own children home for school, she agreed to bring Miss Violet home as a favour to the regiment. Something about being one of the last families to leave for the season,” he added, with the vagueness that plagued him whenever society matters came into a discussion. “She was quite put out that you weren’t here to receive her.”

“Well, she might have sent notice she was coming!”

Holmes nodded to the side table, where an unopened telegram sat. “Not ten minutes after you left.”

I sighed, bitterly. “And since she’s in the enviable position of being about to be rid of her own children, she left this one here rather than risk being saddled with another. But hang on, Holmes, if she’s sending her own children to school, what does she need with the ayah?”

He beamed at me. “Precisely, Watson. Happily, in exchange for a modest finder’s fee, Mrs Collingswood is willing to suffer the inconvenience of having her house staff care for her offspring over the next few days. And fortunately for us, Miss Potter—that can’t possibly be her real name, can it?—is delighted to have ready work here in London while she advertises for her return passage to India. She’s gone to Norwood to settle the other children in, but I am assured that she will return here...” He frowned, and then waved it off. “...soon.”

I sat back into my chair, trying not to be too concerned by his blithe _soon_ _._ “Well, you might have led with that,” I grumbled. Then, realising how I sounded, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It seems you worked the thing nicely.”

He nodded acknowledgement and seated himself opposite me, re-positioning the baby on his knee. The child immediately reached toward a gold watch lying on the table, and to my surprise, he handed it to her. She promptly pushed as much of it as would fit into her mouth.

“That can’t be good for your watch.”

He sighed, and I belatedly saw that his own watch was still on his waistcoat. “Not mine, Watson, yours.” Confused, I touched my own watch chain. “No, the one you carried before you came into your brother’s inheritance. I reasoned that if she will someday come into that storied family timepiece, she should start learning to take care of one now. Isn’t that right, Miss Violet?”

Oh, god. That was altogether too much of my future laid out before me. I shut my eyes against it.

“Besides, she seems to find the texture comforting,” he continued thoughtfully. “Or perhaps the heft. She has a distinct taste for gold, in any case. Plate just doesn’t do.”

“The coolness,” I offered, with a distant sense of doom. “She might be teething.” I was not well up on babies, but didn’t they teethe at about that age?

The wet sounds stopped, as Holmes coaxed the watch from the baby. “Ah, so that’s what teething scratches look like,” he said, obviously delighted by the discovery. The baby began to cry, and I groaned.

“Holmes, what am I meant to do with a baby?”

“There now, don’t fret,” Holmes said. “I only wanted to admire your handiwork.” I belatedly realised he was speaking to the child, not to me. “Raise her, I would have thought. Isn’t that the usual thing?”

I opened my eyes. My watch was back in the child’s mouth, and Holmes was smiling beatifically at the baby again.

Raising a baby, dear god. My track record for merely holding one was abysmal. And I had not been able to keep Violet’s predecessor safe for even two hours. Admittedly, the Monteron infant was already being pursued by kidnappers when she began her short sojourn with us, but given the life Holmes and I lived, how long could I realistically expect to keep a child safe from villains? I had no business having anything to do with a baby, none at all.

“You’re not thinking of abandoning her, I hope?” Holmes asked with the quiet severity he reserved for men who hid their crimes under social respectability.

“Of course not,” I protested, stung. “I was thinking… board her? Keep her well-supplied with pin money, bring her around for Christmas hols, that sort of thing.”

Holmes eyed the child. “She seems a bit young for the tender mercies of rod and ruler, don’t you think? Aren’t they meant to know their ABCs first?”

“A boarding… nursery?” I suggested. Did such things exist? Surely they must.

“Do you have a need for pin-money, Miss Violet?” he asked the baby. “Shall Cousin John keep you well-supplied in gold baubles that make delightful ticking sounds?”

I passed my hand over my face. I was well out of my depth, and I had best admit it. “Holmes,” I said, “I dearly hate to impose on you, but I need your help.”

He turned that beaming smile on me. “Of course, Watson,” he said, sitting forward, “anything you need. You only have to ask.”

Relief flooded me. In this as in everything, as long as Holmes was at my side, anything was possible.

“Would you help me find a place to board her? A good one, of course.” If Holmes couldn’t already distinguish a kind establishment from a cold one, then I trusted his ability to divine the proper signs.

Not a muscle of his face shifted, and yet I would swear that, for a moment, all the warmth in his smile drained away.

Then as abruptly as the fancy had struck me, it passed. He was simply Holmes again, happy to help. He firmly patted my knee. “Of course, my dear fellow, of course. Straight away after Miss Potter returns, if you like. How’s that?”

It would do very well. I gripped his hand in gratitude and told him so.

 

“Good God,” I said, three days later, back in our sitting room again, pouring myself two fingers of brandy. I downed it, then poured a second measure for myself, followed by one for Holmes.

Boarding nurseries did in fact exist: they were called ‘orphanages’ and ‘fostering homes’, and were very nearly the last resort of poor families at their wit’s end. Such establishments were registered and regulated, and thus allegedly no longer descended into sheer Dickensian horror, but it had not taken Holmes long to discover that the third establishment we visited had sunk far beyond the usual incompetence and corruption and was instead acting as the front for an active criminal ring. It had taken all Holmes’ cleverness to excise its directrix without closing its doors and turning the children onto the street. Presumably the children would be safer inside the orphanage’s walls than out, but it struck me as a near thing. Perhaps more honest management would bring an improvement to the place, but assuming that Holmes did not do so himself, I intended to stop back in at regular intervals to make sure that our intervention did not result in something even worse than what we first found. However, my heart to visit any further institutions on Violet’s behalf was completely gone.

Holmes downed his brandy as quickly as I had mine. “I solemnly swear to you, Watson, Miss Violet will never see the inside of any such house while I’m still alive to draw breath.”

“There is not the very slightest risk,” I assured him. “Not while I’m living, not the slightest.”

“Good,” he exhaled, “we’re agreed.”

I nodded. It was comforting to know that Holmes would see to the infant’s welfare if anything happened to me, but it still left the question of where the baby and I were to live. Neither he nor I would risk the child in a boarding establishment, but the baby and I continuing on Baker Street was flatly out of the question. I poured him a second measure of brandy, and myself a third. I would address the particulars of our living arrangements in the morning; I was in no state tonight. Holmes called downstairs for our supper.

Mrs Hudson’s mouth was tight with disapproval when she brought up the meal. “Doctor Watson,” she pronounced in chilly tones, “it’s good to see you again. I was beginning to think you’d abandoned that child.”

I assured her that on the contrary, we’d been endeavouring to find a suitable placement for the infant—or at least we had begun with that intent, before the whole enterprise had gone sideways—but I trailed off under the force of her stern look.

She shook her head in disgust. “You only foster children with people you know and trust, gentlemen. I could have told you that, if anyone had asked. People you can keep your eye on, so you know straightaway if something goes awry. That, or you keep your children at home, which amounts to the same thing. Or it should, if you’re doing the job _properly_.”

I abruptly realised I had no idea what had been happening at Baker Street in our absence. Judging from the uncomfortable expression Holmes shot me across the table, he was no better informed than I. Worse, I had barely met the ayah before Holmes and I left to seek out a boarding nursery; I couldn’t say with any confidence that I would recognise Miss Potter if I met her on the street.

“Miss Potter...?” I asked meekly, fearing the worst. “Has she… been suitable?”

My obvious contrition softened Mrs Hudson somewhat—or, I should say, softened her as much as anything ever did. “Well, she’s foreign in her ways. Won’t touch meat, which I find more than a mite inconvenient. But I can’t see as her ways harm anyone, neither, which is a sight better than most. And you couldn’t ask for better care than she’s given that child.”

I exchanged a relieved glance with Holmes. “That’s excellent to hear. Could you ask her to bring the baby in, when we’re done here?” For all of the battles that Mrs Hudson and I had about ‘the goings-on under her roof,’ I implicitly trusted her judgement of the ayah’s care for the child. But after what I had seen during the last few days—horrors further underscored by Mrs Hudson’s scolding—I felt the pressing need to verify the child’s well-being with my own eyes.

Holmes’ glance followed her as she left the room. “We should perhaps put a little something extra in the rent this month, old boy,” he suggested quietly, and I couldn’t help but agree.

When the maid came to clear our table, she brought Miss Potter with her. The ayah was of middling years, dressed in a crisp white cotton sari, and wore an exotic but modest few items of gold about her face and wrists. More importantly, she held the child with quiet, easy confidence. Even at the distance from our table to the sitting room door, I could see that Violet was rosy, clean, and relatively content in the ayah’s arms. I was shocked by the visceral intensity of my relief.

I stood to examine the child more closely, and she considered me gravely in return. Her gaze was no warmer than it had been the first day, and yet this time, her expression struck me as just and appropriate caution. After all, the child had crossed two oceans for want of someone to keep and care for her, and I had just seen what awaited too many children who lacked protectors. Conscious of all the harm that awaited her in the world, and the frailty of my ability to protect her from it, I reached to take her from Miss Potter.

Foolishly, I had imagined some tender moment of accord between myself and the child—I would solemnly vow to keep her safe and care for her, and she, acting on some childish instinct, would accept that self-same vow of fealty. Instead, it was only a few moments before I found myself with an armful of distraught, wailing infant, struggling mightily to get away from me.

More bewildered than hurt, I turned to the ayah for help, but Holmes neatly stepped between us and plucked the baby from me. “I’m sure you have things to discuss with Miss Potter,” he prompted me, and crossed the room to his desk. “What now, Miss Violet?” he gravely asked the flailing baby. “What is so very upsetting?” I stared after him, dumbfounded to see him so breezy in the face of an overwrought child. He rummaged through his worktop for a few documents, and then took baby and papers to my own desk. It was the more reasonable choice: his desk was covered with his chemical equipments, whereas mine contained no worse than India ink. It was impossible for me to see exactly what he was doing at my desk—I could not make it out past his back—but the child gradually settled into mournful hiccups, becoming as absorbed in the mysterious activity as Holmes was.

At a loss, I turned back to the ayah, who seemed as bewildered as I.

Our interview could have gone more smoothly, as we were both much distracted by Holmes and the baby, and further hamstrung by our lack of a common language. From my time in Asia, I had only a little Punjabi and even less Pashto—unfortunately, I had attempted neither in years—whereas she spoke only Hindi and Bengali. Nevertheless, she haltingly confirmed that she and the baby had been welcomed graciously and wanted for nothing—although her earnest attempts to persuade me of our landlady’s geniality convinced me only of Miss Potter’s extreme reluctance to criticise any Englishwoman. However, the question of her treatment was largely moot, for much to my dismay, she absolutely could not be persuaded to stay on in Baker Street for more than another week. It seemed she had children of her own in Calcutta, and she had already begun negotiations for her return passage with another military family who needed an ayah for their trip. Travel back to the Subcontinent was rare this time of year, and she did not wish to be stranded in London for another six months.

“Very well,” I said finally, feeling much put upon. The problem of a nurse had suddenly become more pressing than the question of where the baby and I were to live. “That will be all for tonight.”

The ayah nodded and went to retrieve the child, but Holmes shooed her away. “We’re very well here, Miss Potter. We’ll send for you when Miss Violet is ready for bed.”

Miss Potter looked to me for guidance. With a puzzled shrug, I confirmed his dismissal, and the ayah reluctantly retreated.

“Whatever are you doing?” I asked him, crossing to the desk. Whatever it was had required stripping down to his shirtsleeves, for both his waistcoat and necktie hung over the back of my chair.

“Hold Miss Violet,” he instructed me, thrusting the child into my arms, “and look at these.”

I took the child even as I protested; refusing would have resulted in dropping her to the floor. He immediately thrust two black-smudged cards into my face.

“Were you taking her _fingerprints?_ ” I asked. “You imagine she’ll be wanted by Scotland Yard one day?”

“Hah! I should think that any child raised under our influence would know better than to leave her fingerprints lying about for the Yard to discover, but we can make sure of her skills once her motor control improves.” I wondered what programme of criminal education he had planned for the poor child, but he thrust the cards under my nose again, so close that I had little choice but to consider them. “I want you to look at these,” he insisted, and then led me on a guided tour of Violet Victoria Mary Smith-Watson’s fingerprints as they compared to one Dr John H. Watson’s. Their partial correspondence correlated to the mutual shape of our ears in some obscure fashion that I failed to follow. In an attempt to clarify his point, Holmes produced a third card bearing his own fingerprints, and then a fourth with Lestrade’s.

“When did Lestrade do a set of fingerprints for you?”

Holmes smirked, inordinately pleased with himself. “He didn’t. Lestrade, like all Yarders, just leaves his prints lying about for anyone to collect.” He glanced at the baby happily patting my cheek, and raised an amused brow.

Abruptly, I realised that I had been holding the child for several minutes without a single protest on her part. I looked at her in surprise, and she, gripping my face in her tiny hands, gazed back at me, wide-eyed and earnest. It was a minor miracle. However, when I looked up to share it with Holmes, I saw he had gone to his desk.

He came back a moment later, holding a bit of wetted rag in his hand and looking suspiciously like he was holding in laughter. He nodded pointedly at me. “I observe that Miss Violet will require further training in not leaving her own fingerprints about.”

A suspicion dawning, I captured the child’s hand in my own: her fingers were dark with ink, still sufficiently wet to smudge off onto my hand. My face must have been a sight. I gave my fellow lodger a stern look. “Holmes, I must say, that was childish.”

“She _is_ a child,” he observed, taking Violet’s hand from me. He delicately wiped her fingers clean with a bit of solvent. “I’m sorry,” he said to the baby, “but I cannot agree that Cousin John would be improved with mutton chops. I take your point about his very excellent moustache, of course, but sideburns would only obscure those fine cheekbones, don’t you agree?”

“Holmes, _really_ ,” I protested, embarrassed at his teasing. When he soberly offered to clean my cheek for me, I instead gave him the baby, plucked the rag from his hand, and went to consult my own shaving mirror.

 

When it came time to interview the candidates for Miss Potter’s replacement, Holmes became a nightmare of distraction, apparently forgetting his earlier offer to assist me. I asked his leave to conduct the interviews in our sitting room—I had not yet had time to secure new lodgings for myself and the baby—but instead of Holmes leaving the sitting room to me and my candidates, he magnanimously reassured me that my interviews were no inconvenience to him. “Don’t trouble yourself, it’s no concern at all,” he absently soothed me from his chemical table.

He evidently spoke the truth—that my interviews were not the slightest concern to him—for over the course of the morning, he produced a distressing series of smoke, bangs, and stinks.

“Holmes!” I protested after a particularly terrific bang had driven my fifth candidate trembling from our sitting room. “How on earth am I supposed to hire a nurse in all this?”

He looked up, blandly concerned. “Oh, do forgive me, old man, I hadn’t realised. Did you find that last candidate suitable, then?”

I hadn’t, actually—the colleen had struck me as skittish and shy from the moment she had entered the room—but at this rate I would never have a chance to discover a suitable candidate. “Well, I can hardly see them at their best, with all these disruptions!”

“Can’t you?” he asked, but we were interrupted by Mrs Hudson, peevishly showing in my sixth candidate.

 _“Mr Holmes,”_ Mrs Hudson reproved, looking as harried by Holmes’ antics as I felt. “I would thank you to be quieter up here. You are waking the child.” Indeed, I could hear its distant cries in another part of the building.

Holmes immediately looked abashed. “My apologies, Mrs Hudson. I didn’t mean to make more work for the household. Why don’t you send Miss Violet in? It’s only fair that I tend to her, if I’m the reason she’s awake in the first place.”

“Up _here?”_ she asked in open disbelief, casting a wary eye at his chemical table. A tendril of smoke still ascended from it.

“Oh, yes, I’m quite finished with that,” he reassured her, throwing open the windows.

“Really, Holmes,” I protested, “now is not the best time—”

“No, you’re right, of course it isn’t, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he agreed, and herded Mrs Hudson toward the door. “Mrs Hudson and I will just leave you to it, then.”

Then both he and Mrs Hudson were gone, leaving me alone with the newest prospective nursemaid. Slight and dark-haired, she seemed unfazed by the goings-on, but I apologised for Holmes anyway. The room still smelled of his stink bombs, but at least the fumes were rapidly clearing.

“Oh, it’s no mind to me, sir. It’s hardly worse than what a flock of young’uns will get up to, given half the chance. Not that I let them run wild, mind,” she hastened to reassure me. “But if they’re clean and polite for the family, and not under the household’s feet between-times, I don’t see any harm in a little high spirits.”

“He’s a grown man,” I muttered to myself, but just then Holmes strode back in, the baby in his arms. The child was red-faced and making phlegmy noises of discontent, but at least she was no longer actively crying. Thankfully, Holmes gave me a wide berth, lest I inadvertently set her off again.

“Oooh, is this the little one?” my interviewee asked, and Holmes brought the baby over to let the girl admire her. The two praised Violet’s face and character, but when they showed no sign of winding down, I cleared my throat. “Holmes, if you please. There will be time enough for that later.”

“Quite right, quite right,” he agreed, and took the baby to the bassinet in the corner beyond the fireplace. He had insisted it be set up there; goodness knows where the child slept at night, when she was with the ayah.

I had only just begun to read over the applicant’s character when Holmes, standing at the window, observed that we were about to have a visitor. I sighed and briefly wondered whether Mrs Hudson could be induced to volunteer her parlour for the remainder of my interviews. I did not have time to consider it for long, however: heavy feet pounded up the stairs two at a time.

I cut Holmes a glance—he seemed bemused by our visitor’s haste—and the door burst open, without even a knock for admittance. A burly tough in a seedy suit, his hat pulled low over his face, stood before us. The prospective nursemaid gave a fluttering cry of alarm.

“Which one of you is Sherlock Holmes?” the man demanded.

“Now see here—” I protested, standing with every mind to eject the lout if he didn’t immediately improve his manners.

He drew a knife on me. It was a wicked thing, fully eight inches long, and he brandished it as if he meant to use it.

 _“Holmes!”_ I warned, catching up one of the breakfast chairs for our defence. My revolver was locked away in my room—I had never been in the habit of leaving it lying about in any case, but since the baby’s arrival I had developed a cold horror that Holmes would take it into his head to give it to the child as a teething toy. But a stout chair could serve against the knife’s reach nearly as well.

To my astonishment, Holmes burst into laughter. The man in front of me joined him, and I abruptly realised who I was menacing.

“Shinwell Johnson!” I exclaimed. The man sometimes served as Holmes’ agent in the London underworld.

“Guilty as charged,” he grinned at me as he put his knife away. “You have to admit I got you there, doctor.”

“What is the meaning of this behaviour? Holmes?”

“I’ll take that, if you don’t mind,” Holmes said, and I turned to see him extract our fireplace poker from the would-be nursemaid’s two-handed grasp. The girl looked frankly terrified, and yet she stood staunchly in front of the baby’s bassinet, holding our poker like a sword, ready to face down Johnson. “You’ll have to forgive me my little pranks on Dr Watson,” Holmes soothed her. “I trust you won’t hold it against us. However, despite the peculiarities of the household—or rather because of them—I think you’ll find that Dr Watson is a very generous employer, one who highly values bravery and loyalty.” He raised a meaningful eyebrow at me.

I belatedly realised what Holmes had been about all morning, with his earnest attempts to drive off all my candidates. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Bravery and loyalty, _really_ , Holmes.”

He cast me a conspiratorial glance.

“You’re Mr Sherlock Holmes?” the girl asked, slightly overawed.

“I am.”

She looked around the room again, warily eyeing Shinwell Johnson. “Then I imagine this kind of thing happens often.”

“Not _too_ often,” Holmes replied, “but it is still a comfort to know that you’re of stout heart. Now if you’ll excuse me a moment, Mr Johnson and I have a business matter to discuss.” Holmes, his hand already in his pocket for a coin, gestured for his accomplice to precede him to the door. “Do let me know if I can be of further assistance,” he said to me as he passed.

I sighed, and then glanced over the papers still in my other hand for the girl’s name. “Miss Burke. Please forgive us, I know this has been a most irregular interview. Mr Holmes’ antics aside, we _are_ a respectable household. You may apply to Mrs Hudson for reassurance on that point, should you need it.” I prayed that Mrs Hudson felt an urgency equalling mine that I should not be left stranded with a baby and no one to attend to it.

But Miss Burke was recovering her equanimity quickly. “Just so you know,” she told me with stubborn determination, “I’ve never yet let a soul hurt a baby. Never once.”

Her statement implied unhappy things about the people she had lived among before this, but I could see what had convinced Holmes of her so quickly. “I earnestly hope you’re never called on for such service here,” I replied.

And yet I could not make her the assurance. We were only infrequently troubled by violence at Baker Street, and yet there had been the assault on the Monteron child and a few other occurrences, including a would-be client murdered at our sitting room door. Holmes was apparently concerned enough at the possibility of harm befalling the child that he saw fit to test this girl’s courage. It only affirmed me in my conviction that Violet and I could not, in good conscience, continue on at Baker Street. I had no intention of giving up Holmes’s company myself, of course, but Violet need not be proximate to the trouble that sought out the man.

At least the question of a nurse was solved. I proposed a salary to the girl—a generous one, in recompense for the irregularity of her interview—which she immediately and gratefully accepted. I resolved to inquire after estate agents that very afternoon.

 

The search for new lodgings was utterly demoralizing. Of course there were bachelor lodgings aplenty in London, some even adjacent to reasonable consulting rooms. Any of them would have served if it were just for myself. However, once there was enough additional space for a nurse and a baby, plus their requisite staff, I was looking at a small house, which was well beyond my means. As unpleasant as the prospect might be, I could cope with austerity that bordered on privation while I built a practice, but decent housing was an implicit part of my contract with Miss Burke. And Violet—

I knew little about babies, but even I knew it would be no time at all before she became cognizant of where she was and what I had brought her to. Or rather, what the untimely passing of her parents had brought her to, and I had been unable to spare her. That the original fault had not been mine did little to assuage my guilt over the matter.

Letting myself into the front hall at Baker Street, I cursed myself again for not having been more thrifty or industrious since my return to England. I had coasted on my pension and honoraria from Holmes’ cases, a combination comfortable enough as long as I was not too spendthrift. But even with Holmes’ occasional financial intervention—he had locked away my chequebook in a few instances when I was reckless with the horses—I had very little saved that could get myself and Violet off to a proper start.

The maid informed me that Mrs Hudson was not in, which was a further annoyance on top of an already trying day. I could not trust to my landlady’s good graces forever: I needed to beg her continued indulgence while I sought a place for myself and the child, and in the meantime, I further needed to make some accommodation for the rent.

I needed to discuss the rent with Holmes, as well. He undoubtedly already understood the necessity of replacing me in Baker Street—unless he chose to go the rent alone—but it still wouldn’t do to leave him in the lurch without proper notice.

All this assumed, of course, that I could find lodgings to remove _to_ _._

Opening our door from the landing, I was immediately enveloped in the warm and familiar atmosphere of our rooms. Even the presence of the child, gurgling to itself on a blanket in the middle of our sitting room rug, contributed to the contented mood. I stood in the door, taking comfort that for at least for this little while, I still had Baker Street.

“Watson,” Holmes greeted me from his desk, where he was examining some papers. “Mrs Hudson has given me to understand that she wishes to speak to you.”

I grimaced. So much for my attempt to leave unpleasantness outside the door. I came in fully, shutting the door behind me. “And I to her. Unfortunately, she’s out for the evening. Drink?” He declined, so I poured only the one and took it to my chair, where I could watch both Holmes and Violet. I nursed my drink, letting the comfort of our rooms drain away the exhaustion of the day.

Inexplicably, the child was in possession of a moderately-sized chunk of plaster of Paris, large enough that she could only just heft it two-handed. Its weight, however, did little to quell her determination to bang it against its mate. I watched her efforts with idle interest, but to both of our disappointments, she eventually proved unequal to the task: the chunk of plaster slipped from her grasp, tumbling to land face-up. I abruptly realised what the thing was.

“Holmes. You didn’t give her the footprints of one of your murderers to play with, did you?”

“Of course not, they’re all hanged now. She’s far too young to be trusted with such irreplaceable items.” He turned to the child and murmured an aside that I failed to catch.

“What was that?”

He sighed and affected the tone of a much put-upon man. “I _said_ , ‘Cousin John has many admirable qualities, and yet he can’t recognise his own footprints when they’re right in front of him.’”

“I fail to see why I should have to,” I returned, and finishing my drink, stood to take up the post. “I already know where I’ve been; I don’t need to discover my whereabouts via my footprints.” I leafed through the envelopes, hoping for the announcement of an unexpected windfall to match the unexpected child, or better yet, the existence of another previously unknown relative, this one eager to take in a foundling infant. Sadly, there was neither.

Holmes offered another witticism to the child, and I abruptly realised why I hadn’t understood the first one.

“Are you speaking to her in French?”

“Miss Burke is hardly going to teach it to her.”

“Yes, but isn’t she a bit young for it?”

“Not too young for French babies.”

“But she’s not a French baby.”

“No,” he agreed amicably, “she isn’t.”

I sighed. “You are going to confuse her English.”

“I was raised in French. It didn’t confuse _my_ English.”

I raised my brows. His speech was impeccable, of course, but there were other notable irregularities to his character.

He still had his back to me, and yet he heard my unvoiced criticism. “You’re not in the position to cast stones at other people’s upbringing, doctor. _You_ were permitted to run wild in the streets of Ballarat, and now your closest bosom friend in the world is _me_ _.”_

I laughed, because it was true. “How do you know I spent my childhood in Ballarat?” I was certain I had never spoken of it.

“You confirmed it, just now.” He turned his head enough for me to see his smile, and I shook my head at him, pleased with him in spite of myself. The man was a trial to me, and yet there would be few enough remaining evenings like this.

I refilled my drink, and without asking, poured him one, too. “Why did you _suspect_ Ballarat, then? I thought I had quite rid myself of the accent.”

“Precisely. One only hears diction like yours on people who have trained themselves to it. As to Ballarat specifically, doctor, permit me my little secrets, as I mostly permit you yours. Now,” he said, finally putting down his papers and swivelling his chair to regard me. “What have you been about today? I perceive you’ve been around half the town and back, up to Queen Anne’s Street and back down to…” His mouth pursed in annoyance. “You’re considering going into practice again. You should have said something if you’re short on funds. I can always take on a few more commercial cases.”

“You dislike commercial cases.”

“I also dislike having my friend and colleague unavailable when a case, commercial or otherwise, comes by.”

“Never fear, Holmes, I’ll still come around for cases.” Not as often as he or I might like, but I had no intention of giving up the man’s company. Violet threatened to upset every other aspect of my life, but I was determined to retain at least that much for myself.

I was so caught up in the thought that I failed to notice the ice that settled over our sitting room. That is, until Holmes spoke. “And will you do me the courtesy of telling me how I have given offence?”

I glanced at him, surprised by the distance in his voice. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not simply considering going into practice, you’re leaving entirely. So I ask you again: how have I given offence? Unlike Mrs Hudson, you trust me not to harm the child. _She’s_ been sending Miss Burke in on the hour to make sure I haven’t made Miss Violet the object of some grotesque experiment.”

“Of course I trust you with the child!” I said, shocked that he could think otherwise. He was unorthodox in the extreme, but it was inconceivable that he’d allow any foreseeable harm befall Violet.

“Then if it’s not the child, I ask you a _third_ time—”

“But of course it’s the child, Holmes! Come now, be sensible. There’s a limit to how long I can impose upon you and Mrs Hudson.”

When he spoke, his voice was even chillier. “If you examine the matter carefully, I think you will find that our relationship with Mrs Hudson is founded on imposition: we impose upon her household, her larder, and her goodwill, and she charges us a handsome monthly fee for the privilege. And pray tell me, doctor, when have I ever given the impression that I find Miss Violet an _imposition?”_

I winced. “Of course you haven’t, Holmes. You’ve been entirely gracious about the matter, more than a man has any right to ask.”

“Gracious,” he gritted. He glowered at me for a moment, then scooped Violet from her blanket and went to touch the bell pull. I goggled at him: I would have risked money that he hadn’t known we had a bell pull; he universally preferred to bellow his demands down the stairs.

He misread my wonderment. “You have yet to earn Miss Violet’s good opinion, Watson, and I’d rather not further prejudice your position by shouting at you in front of her.”

“Holmes—” I protested, but he silenced me with a fierce glare.

We passed some minutes in silence—his icy and mine wretched—waiting for someone to respond to his summons. I imagine the staff was as confused to hear the bell as I had been to see it used, and the interval was more than sufficient for me to review my errors. In hindsight, however, they were obvious. From the first, Holmes had been delighted by Violet’s presence in the house; given the least opportunity, he had repeatedly sought her out. My own relations to the child had been dutiful and grudging; Holmes’ had never been.

At last the maid came to the door, and Holmes handed the child into her arms. “If you would take her to Miss Burke, Alice, thank you,” he instructed, and stroked the child’s head once in farewell. Then he shut the door on both maid and baby and stood where he was, chin down, his back to me.

I could not bear to hear whatever rebuke he was readying. “Don’t say anything, Holmes, please, I beg you. I entirely misjudged your charity, and I apologise heartily for it. But surely you must see that Violet and I can’t continue at Baker Street.”

“I fail to see any such thing,” he said, finally turning to me. His expression was as aloof as I had ever seen it. “Explain your objections to me.” He crossed to the window and stood looking out.

It seemed ludicrous that I should need to explain it to him, but his expectant silence was uncompromising. “If nothing else, there’s the matter of space. We can’t house a nurse and baby in here,” I gestured at our three rooms, “and I can’t keep imposing on Mrs Hudson’s household forever.”

He turned to look at me incredulously. “Where do you imagine they’ve been sleeping up until now? Did you think Mrs Hudson put them in the coal cellar?”

I gave him a sullen look. “I _imagine_ they’ve been squeezed in with Alice, wherever it is that she sleeps. The attics, I presume.”

“You astonish me, Watson. How many windows does the front of this house have?”

I blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“The question was clear enough.”

“Why does it matter?” He continued to look at me. I sighed and began mentally counting up windows, extrapolating from the layout of our own floor.

He made a noise of disgust. “I didn’t ask for a _guess_ , Watson.”

“Well, I’m hardly about to run down into the street and count!”

With a magnanimous gesture, he stood back from his window.

Cursing him, I went to it, threw open the glass, and leaned out far enough to count.

The ground floor was exactly as I expected, mirroring the windows in our own rooms and landing, minus one for the front door. After a quick glance to the sides to confirm that I had not misremembered the layout of our own floor, I twisted around to look up—

On the story above us, at the other end of the house, the windows were barred.

My count forgotten, I pulled back in the window to look at Holmes. “Why does Mrs Hudson have a nursery?”

He raised a brow at me. “If you wish to question a woman who has never admitted to a living child on her reasons for having a disused and apparently abandoned nursery in her home, I commend you on your courage. I also ask for ample notice, so that I can find other lodgings.”

I grimaced, because it was not a question I’d ask of her, either. I leaned back out to look again. One of the barred windows was lit from inside. “And that’s where Violet and Miss Burke have been staying?”

“Temporarily, yes. Mrs Hudson had been using it as a lumber-room, but she shifted enough items the first few days to make space for the ayah. Now it is Miss Burke up there with Violet.”

“And you really think Mrs Hudson will permit us to let it?”

“Oh, I know so. I spoke with her today about it. I couldn’t imagine why you were delaying so long in making permanent arrangements—I presumed it was part of your general pattern of avoiding the child as much as possible, little did I know you had actually taken it into your head _to move out—”_ His demeanour suggested that I would not be soon forgiven for that, and I sighed, knowing I would be working that off for some time to come. “She’s amenable, provided you reassure her on certain points. Such as not leaving supervision of the nurse or nursery to her.”

It was a fair concern—I had trusted her and Holmes to let me know of any pressing concerns while I devoted my energies to seeking a new residence—but I could see how it looked to Mrs Hudson, and I understood why she might be wary.

But the thought of not having to give up my life with Holmes, of continuing on at Baker Street, with Violet and her nurse just upstairs, secure from—

“No, Holmes, it’s not going to work.”

“Why not?”

“A baby at Baker Street?” I gestured at the sitting room, at the house, at the sheer impossibility of it. He looked back at me in blank inquiry. “It’s not _safe_.”

Holmes’ eye landed on his chemical equipment. “There’s both a nursery and a nurse, as well as locks on the sitting room door and on my own. The truly volatile chemicals haven’t been out here since the first day. When she becomes capable of reaching my table the rest will join them. Of course, I understand that a mere lock won’t keep the child at bay forever, but surely she’ll have reached the age of reason by the time she’s learned to defeat one?”

His casual assumption that she would learn lock picking made me ache wistfully. “But it’s not just your researches, Holmes. You truly don’t believe that a tiny Irish nursemaid with a fire iron is going to hold off the likes of Shinwell Johnson’s colleagues?”

“And you believe Miss Violet would be safer in Chisholm Street?” His tone was scathing.

The most unsavoury property I had seen that day had been in Chisholm Street; the neighbourhood had been much worse than the house. “Of course I was never going to move her into Chisholm Street!”

“And of course I was never going to leave Miss Violet’s defence to a nursemaid!”

We each glared at the other.

“Then what did you have in mind?” I finally asked, when it seemed neither of us would back down.

“I had thought to hire Alfie as a porter.”

Alfie was one of his more senior Irregulars, perhaps the only one to receive regular meals, given his truly shocking gain in height and mass over the past year. “Why, Alfie wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“And yet he’d soundly thrash anyone who did.”

I considered it: Alfie at the door, plus two full stories between the door and the nursery, with us positioned at the first landing. It would do for day-to-day, provided we were not out on a case. Additional measures might be taken in that instance.

“Watson,” Holmes said, suddenly grave, “I failed you before with the Monteron child, but I should never be able to ask your forgiveness if I failed you and Miss Violet, as well.”

I blinked at him, startled by his bringing the Monteron infant into it. Since Violet’s arrival, I had been haunted by my failure to protect that child; I had not realised the mistakes of that day tormented Holmes, too.

I glanced at the blanket on the floor, where Violet had so recently been playing, and re-considered Holmes’ habit of bringing her into his sight at the least opportunity. “You didn’t—” I began.

“I would never permit that to happen twice,” he entreated, and I finally understood that in asking us to stay at Baker Street, he was asking for an opportunity to redeem himself. A proof, perhaps, that I still trusted him.

As if anything could shake my trust in him.

“Of course,” I said, my voice thick. Violet would be far safer under his protection—our joint protection—than anything I might manage for her alone. “If you would not be put out by our continuing on at Baker Street—”

“My dear fellow. What did you think I meant that first day, when I said you might have anything you needed?”

His generosity unmoored me. I pressed his elbow, unequal to guarding my feeling in any greater gesture.

His hand covered mine, and his eyes said what he didn’t voice.

The moment was too much for both of us, and we broke apart. He caught up his violin and retreated to the privacy of his room, while I went downstairs, to see if Mrs Hudson had returned.

  

Holmes insisted on paying Alfie’s wages himself, arguing that he had been considering employing a porter even before Violet’s arrival, and furthermore, it was only Holmes’ own residence that made Alfie necessary. Despite my best attempts, I could not sway him on the point. Mrs Hudson’s terms for letting the nursery were eminently reasonable, and between the two—and Holmes taking on a few more commercial cases than his usual wont—I was able to not only cover my expenses but also put a little more aside. Whether I would need that in the distant future for a governess, schooling, and fashionable frocks, or nearer to the present, for lodgings and a practice when Holmes’ forbearance for Violet’s presence ran out, it was beyond my ability to say.

For all of Holmes’ apparent affection for Violet, his non-criminal enthusiasms had always run fast and hot, extinguishing themselves for want of new fuel as quickly as they had flared up in the first place. Those first months, I watched him for signs of impending indifference to the child, lest she and I inadvertently overstay our welcome. And yet Violet continued to spend more time in our sitting room than in the nursery, my foundling and my friend as thick as thieves.

The simile was apt, as Holmes seemed intent on giving Violet a complete set of lessons in criminality and its detection, never mind that his lectures could hardly have meant any more to her than they did to Lestrade. He seemed unbothered that she regarded the tools of his trade as toys to scatter and destroy at will, but late one evening I put my foot down after she merrily plunged both hands into his samples of tobacco ash, triumphantly pulling back with two tight fists of the stuff. Or rather, I picked her up, handily removing her from temptation. She kicked out as I pulled her away, and the samples went everywhere.

“Holmes, _you_ might have the patience to re-create your work again, but your long-suffering fellow-lodger would rather not live in that poisonous atmosphere a second time. And I can assure you, neither Mrs Hudson nor—” The child smacked at my face in her displeasure, and I choked on a sudden mouthful of ash. By the time I had coughed my airway clear, she had spilled the remainder of her treasured double-handful down my front and begun to cry at its loss.

“Watson, my dear,” Holmes said. His voice was grave, but the laughter was clear around his eyes.

Some of the ash had fallen inside my collar, and I stretched my neck uncomfortably. It only made the sensation worse.

I fiercely looked my displeasure at Holmes; he bit his lip in amusement and prudently turned away to tidy up the mess. In a high dudgeon, I carried Violet up to the nursery, where Miss Burke met us with exclamations of dismay. She readily took the child from me, and in exchange, gave me a scolding for letting Violet come to such a state. Rather than risk my dignity further by defending myself, I stiffly bade them both a good night and returned downstairs, loosening my tie and collar as I went. It did little to relieve the crawling, itching sensation of the ash against my throat and breast.

Holmes met me at our door with an apologetic manner and a very welcome two fingers of brandy. The tumbled piles of ash were no longer on the rug. Perhaps he had merely scuffed them into the pile for someone else to beat out of it again at a later date, but I didn’t care, just so long as I had to neither look at it nor hear about it. Still, whatever good mood I had been in earlier was perfectly spoilt.

Holmes eyed my general state of untidiness. He, of course, had emerged from the affair unscathed. “Perhaps you wish to change?” he suggested.

“Are you expecting a visitor?” He indicated in the negative, although we both knew there was no hour so late that someone might not appear at the door with an urgent request for his services. I tried to brush the worst of the filth away and sighed. “I’ll take my chances. I’m headed for bed soon anyway.” First, however, I wanted to drink my brandy by the fire.

Holmes joined me, watching me quietly as we drank. When the peace of the room had very nearly re-established itself, he observed, “I take it you never imagined yourself a father.”

“Of course I had,” I rejoined, somewhat nettled by the comment. “Someday, after I married, of course.” I had always expected to marry, but I was in no hurry—I enjoyed my life with Holmes too much for the notion to be more than a vague, distant possibility. I hadn’t even been saving to that end, much to my recent embarrassment when I acquired a child and an immediate need for funds. “I would marry, and then there would be… children,” I finished vaguely.

Holmes studied the bottom of his glass, refraining from offering comment.

But now that he had asked the question, I saw how formless that vision had been: there was no detail to it beyond several bright-faced and indistinguishable children, their eyes full of hero-worship as they greeted my return home from my nearly-as-mythical practice. It was certainly nothing like my day-to-day struggles with Violet. “No, I suppose I never really had. Although I did think that if I became a father, they’d at least feel affection for me,” I added miserably.

He raised an eyebrow. “It was hardly personal, Watson. You’d just removed her from an excellent source of amusement.”

I gave him a dark look. “You know very well what I mean.” The child hardly ever smiled for me—rather, she was far more likely to cry when she was in my arms—and she certainly never reached for me, like she did for Holmes.

“You’re scared of her.”

“I _beg_ your pardon.” I had many faults, but I had never been aware of cowardice being one of them.

“Calm yourself, Watson, I’m not impugning your courage. But when you hold her, you’re clearly thinking about all the ways you might hurt her or fail her—”

I began a protest that those worries were reasonable, I could very easily hurt her through carelessness or inattention, but he held up a finger, asking for space to finish his thought.

“And Miss Violet, in her turn, is a highly intelligent and sensitive child. Intelligent enough to know that you’re afraid of something, even if not exactly what.”

I studied him, strongly disliking the implication. “You’re suggesting that she cries because _she’s_ scared. Because I scare her,” I summarised.

It had become clear to me these past months that I was only adequate as a guardian: I could provide Violet with housing, a nurse, and—as unlikely as the thought was—a _Holmes_ , but my qualities began and ended there. And now Holmes was suggesting that my very person scared her. I had met many stern and unapproachable fathers in my time—the breed was far more common than its opposite—but that was never the sort of man I wished to be myself.

Holmes shrugged. “It’s a hypothesis. There might also be some mutual expectations between you, at this point, intensifying matters. But I note that the times that you have been most successful in holding her have been the times you were thinking the least about it.”

I frowned at him. “I fail to see what I’m to do with this information. You’ve given me merely one more thing to worry about when I’m holding her.”

He waved a hand. “Then I suggest you don’t think about it.”

I snorted at the obvious futility of that. Continuing to nurse my drink, I sat further back in my chair. The ash inside my clothing itched, and I flicked at my shirtfront, trying to dispel the sensation. “And you? Have you ever imagined yourself a father?” The man was ridiculously good with children, and had been for as long as I had known him. If there was ever a man born to be a warm and affectionate father, he was.

He was silent long enough that I began to regret the question, but when he looked up from his glass, his voice was light and wry. “There never seemed much point to it. I always understood a woman to be integral to the process.” He lifted his glass to me, then drained it and stood. “Goodnight, Watson. We’ll begin in the morning.”

“Hang on, begin _what_ in the morning?” I asked his retreating back, but he merely smiled and shut his door firmly behind him.

I never discovered what he had intended for the morning, because Lestrade came knocking at our door before dawn. We spent a day and a half pursuing a jewel thief before we were finally forced into a lull, Holmes unable to advance his case without information from Philadelphia. Given the early hour in America, he didn’t expect his reply before afternoon, at the earliest.

We returned to Baker Street for the interval, and as was his wont, Holmes continued up to the nursery to fetch Violet down. He settled himself at my writing desk, Violet on his lap, and proceeded to let her make a mess of my things. Fortunately, I had become accustomed to that from them, and now kept my papers and manuscripts safely locked up where Violet couldn’t damage them.

Today he was speaking to her in French—he alternated days with German, regardless of my worries that he was confusing her English—and presently I heard my name in among the rest.

“And what are you telling her about me now?” I asked, feeling peevish. Earlier that morning I had bungled a piece of the case that he had entrusted to me, and while he had held his tongue about it at the time, I was still smarting from the humiliation. I wished that if he was going to chide me about it, that he would do it to my face and in English.

“If you must know,” he responded with some asperity, “we were discussing the exact shade of your eyes. Miss Violet’s colour identification is abysmal.”

“My _eyes,”_ I said dubiously, dropping the top of my paper so I could see over it. I still couldn’t see what they were doing, so I folded my paper and stood to join them. The wax crayons Holmes had imported from America—some educational fad he had caught onto—were strewn across my desk. Violet was chewing on a red one, while Holmes was laying down neat patches of colour, the near-violets at the top of the sheet shading through green down to browns at the bottom, the colours muddying out to indeterminate greys at the far right.

I studied his methodical tablet. “Well, I don’t know what you expect from her, she can’t even speak yet. Do those all even have names?”

He named the swatches off for my benefit—or for Violet’s, I suppose, since he did it in French, although she paid no notice to the exercise. “Not that eye colour rewards such extreme precision in identification,” he elaborated to me, “as apparent shade shifts with ambient light. But often a range of possible shades can be inferred, if the light is known.” He turned to the child. “If you pay attention,” he said to her, “you’ll observe that during a proper pea-souper, Cousin John’s eyes are _caca d’oie_ , from all the yellow in the light.”

Thankfully, I was saved from having to respond to this speech by Billy bringing in a telegram. Holmes held it just beyond Violet’s pleading reach to read it.

“Excellent,” he pronounced, and turned to me. “Watson, I’m going out. I’ll need you to stay here and receive any messages.” He stood and began to hand the baby to me, but as I reached to take her, he stopped and frowned. “No, that will never do,” and before I saw what he was about, he leaned forward and firmly kissed the centre of my forehead.

I stared at him, unsure if I had taken leave of my senses.

“Better,” he decided, and while I was still too gobsmacked for words, he bundled the child into my arms. He gave Violet a quick buss on the forehead as well—she was less startled than I—and took up his hat and coat. “This evening!” he called, and was out the door.

Several minutes had passed by the time I had collected my wits. Violet had entertained herself in the interval by pulling the end of my cravat free from my waistcoat. She glanced up at me with big eyes, then returned to her examination of the length of fabric, earnestly working out how best to fold it so that it would fit into her tiny mouth.

“I shall have to change that now, you know,” I told her, “you’ve gotten it wet and crumpled.” But the novelty of having her at peace in my arms was too great a pleasure for me to be much put out about the damage to my person. Impulsively, I kissed her forehead where Holmes had done, and she allowed it with good grace.

In the usual run of things, I would have taken her directly up to the nursery after Holmes’ departure, but in the usual run of things Violet would also have been crying by now. She showed no sign of discontent at the moment, however, and I found myself almost indecently eager to take advantage of it. Perhaps I should have been more concerned at Holmes’ unprecedented act—or more concerned that once I got past my initial surprise, I did not truly mind it—but I was frankly more occupied by the sheer novelty of the child’s contentment.

That, and a mild curiosity as to whether the child could be led to do anything with a crayon but chew on it.

 

Thorough experimentation revealed that Violet could not only chew on a crayon, but also thrust it in my face. After dodging the crayon several times—she preferentially aimed for my nose and mouth, and once narrowly missed my eye—I took it from her and encouraged her to return to chewing on my cravat instead. She enjoyed the silk for a while, but eventually grew fretful and discontented, and at a loss, I took her upstairs. Miss Burke was of the opinion that Violet had simply grown hungry, and she took the child from me, promising her both a meal and a nap.

When I came back down, I changed and tidied away the crayon-work on my desk. Violet had permitted me to lead her through a few strokes early on, I guiding her little fist in mine across the page, but she had been thoroughly underwhelmed by the resulting marks, and had shown no interest whatsoever in replicating the effort on her own. Thus nearly all of the crayon-work on the pages was mine: for the most part, rough anatomical studies of the child’s limbs, in the style of the sketches I had once done during my medical training. Violet’s feet in particular were fascinating, the bones the same as those of an adult, but arranged somewhat differently.

When Holmes returned, he glanced around the sitting room, taking in my fresh clothing, my neatened desk, and perhaps a few other indications. “It went well, I see.”

His smile had a self-satisfied air to it, and I belatedly realised the purpose of his earlier behaviour: he had deliberately distracted me from worrying about holding the child, and thus from inadvertently scaring her.

“A method to his madness,” I muttered to myself, chagrined that it had taken this long to divine his purpose.

Holmes beamed. “Just so, and I’m glad to see it was effective. But grab your coat and hat, we’re needed at Victoria Station, and quickly.”

Unfortunately, understanding the purpose of Holmes’ mad behaviour was little proof against it: over the next days, his grab-bag of distracting, bewildering antics proved apparently bottomless, and I was repeatedly left thunderstruck in the instant before he put the child in my arms. I put up with his chaos for a week, before firmly declaring that I was quite capable of handling the child without his intervention.

He watched with mild amusement as I gave him wide, wary berth on my way to retrieving the newly-mobile Violet from where she was disarranging the lowest shelf of our bookcases. “It’s nearly a shame to hear that. I was rather enjoying myself.”

“I’m quite certain you were,” I told him, and then hushed the child when she protested my taking her away from her amusement. “Shh, we’ll find you something more interesting to play with,” I told her as I fetched her to the box of diversions that had taken up residence near her bassinet: proper toys I bought as the whim took me, along with various bizarre and sometimes grotesque items that had caught Holmes’ eye. With Violet’s reluctant assistance—she was still preoccupied by our books—I dug through the collection for something that might save our library from the child. “I will point out, Holmes, that I have never noticed you to want for amusement, and it certainly didn’t require Violet’s arrival for you to find it at my expense.”

He contrived to look offended. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” But thereafter, his campaign to keep me off-kilter died back to its usual nuisance levels.

Regardless of my newfound comfort with the child and her more-frequent displays of affection toward me, Holmes of course remained Violet’s favourite: the man was altogether too vibrant and novel to be anything but a source of endless fascination to her. It was a point of view that I could hardly criticise. Yet Violet did smile for me when I came up to the nursery by myself, and she sometimes voluntarily came to me, even despite Holmes’ more attractive presence, when he brought her down to our sitting room.

Things continued somewhat peaceably with the three of us, and I came to see why Holmes never grew bored of the child. Violet was ever changing, and the shifts in her shuffled and re-shuffled the dynamic of our rooms. I had a month of high anxiety when she first began talking—or seemed to begin, conversing in a fluid string of observations, queries, and answers, none of which contained any recognisable meaning at all. Holmes, looking worried himself, confirmed that Violet’s ‘French’ and ‘German’ were just as convincing to his ear, and yet held no more sense than her ‘English.’ Miss Burke did her best to assuage my conviction that Holmes’ programme of multilingualism had harmed the child, and even Mrs Hudson was ultimately called upon to confirm that children often conversed in utterly convincing nonsense before moving on to proper English. After keeping Holmes and I on tenterhooks for a month, Violet finally began using proper and recognisable words, and even though one language was mixed freely with the next, I began to believe that perhaps we had not harmed her after all.

She had even progressed so far as to discovering what crayons were for, joyfully leaving her mark on any surface that would take their imprint, when Holmes was shot.

It was a trivial case, unworthy of Holmes’ talents, one of those ‘commercial’ matters he had begun taking solely for their financial rewards. Our client was a minor noble whose riches were matched only by his monumental pride, while our quarry was a minor con artist whose ambition far exceeded his talent. The matter should have been well within the capabilities of the Yard, but our client had a horror of his gullibility becoming a source of public entertainment. Indeed, the most difficult part of our task would be preventing said con artist from realising he held the makings of a successful blackmail campaign.

With the intent of negotiating with him, we tracked Kilpatrick down to his well-furnished rooms, whereupon we discovered that Holmes had severely overestimated the man. Rather than showing any kind of sense, Kilpatrick turned on Holmes with the frenetic, aggressive menace of a man with everything to lose, completely incommensurate to the penalties he actually faced. Before Holmes could seize control of the interview, the man produced a gun, an action so unexpected that I had already struck out with my stick to disarm him before I fully registered what I was striking at. My blow knocked his shot wild—

Or so I thought, in the instant before Holmes shouted and fell.

I sprang upon our assailant, determinedly beating the gun out of his hand lest he get off a second shot. The gun fell, and I struck him across the face, meaning to incapacitate him, and had drawn back my stick to strike him a second time, when Holmes barked my name.

I paused, my stick still raised, caught between wanting to beat the man further for his sheer _impudence_ in shooting Holmes, and my belated recognition that there was no point: the object of my anger was already curled brokenly on the floor.

“I shall be very put out if you make me come over there,” Holmes warned, dry as dust.

I had said just that to Violet, earlier that morning.

She had not minded me, and consequently spent several minutes crying heartbrokenly into Holmes’ side over the abrupt loss of her crayons. But not a half hour later, she had been so sweet and charming that I had given them back to her. Holmes had utterly failed to contain his amusement at us.

I was still itching to strike the man at my feet, but I stepped back and lowered my stick.

Holmes sat on the floor with one leg stretched out before him, a hand clutching his thigh. He was bleeding freely beneath his hand—I could see the red between his fingers—and a few inches of his trouser leg were discoloured. Thankfully, the fabric did not appear properly wet.

“It’s just a graze, Watson,” he said, trying for cavalier. I knew better than to believe his tone. The man would have been on his feet, coolly intimidating his prey, if he believed he could manage it.

Kilpatrick’s gun lay on the floor, a little beyond his reach; I caught its trigger guard with the tip of my stick and slid the weapon across to Holmes, who caught it neatly. “You stay where you are,” I warned the whimpering, contemptible object at my feet, prodding him with the point of my stick for emphasis. He mewled his assent, which only made me wish to strike him again: the man could have had the decency to give in to his cowardice _before_ he shot Holmes.

“It’s only a graze,” Holmes repeated as I prised his hand free of his leg.

“Then you won’t mind me looking at it, will you?” It was bleeding freely but not excessively, yet there was still too much blood to see the wound properly. When I had sliced open the fabric of his trousers and wiped the worst of it away, I found that the bullet had scored a deep groove in the side of his thigh. The flesh underneath was already swelling from the bullet’s impact, but it was unclear if those tissues had been directly compromised by the bullet’s passing. The major vein and artery seemed well-insulated from the impact, in any case, and if the muscle was damaged, it was unlikely to be damaged badly. Properly cared for, the wound had good odds of healing cleanly.

“A graze,” I pronounced, unwilling to endorse his _only._

“As I said,” he chided me, already short with me in his discomfort.

I didn’t argue the _only_ with him, even though bullet wounds, even very simple ones, could go horribly wrong, as I had ample reason to know. I requisitioned his handkerchief, folded it together with mine, and directed him to hold the makeshift pad in place. “Steady pressure,” I told him, “and don’t you _dare_ move from that spot.”

“Really, Watson—” he began to protest, but upon seeing my expression, he thought better of whatever he had been about to say.

I cut down a curtain cord and trussed our assailant with it, making short, ruthless work of the job.

“Not one _inch_ ,” I warned Holmes again, and went down into the street to find a constable.

 

Getting Holmes back to Baker Street was an ordeal. His leg began swelling in earnest in the cab, and I had to slit his trouser leg further and loosen his bandages. It required Alfie’s assistance to remove Holmes from the growler at all, and I gave over to Alfie the task of getting him up the stairs. The lad was larger and stronger than I was and would be gentler with him, besides: my hands had begun to tremble during the journey home, much to my disgust. I had used to be much better than this under fire.

“Straight to his bed,” I told Alfie. “And no backtalk from him, either. To his _bed_.”

Holmes shot me a mutinous look, but Alfie was determined as he took my place under Holmes’ arm. “Yes, Dr Watson, straight to his bed,” he said, pausing before the first stair. “Ready, Mr ‘Olmes?”

I squeezed their shoulders for courage, then went to requisition supplies from Mrs Hudson.

When I arrived upstairs a few minutes later with cold water and compresses, Holmes was sitting half-upright on his bed, Alfie kneeling at his feet to remove his shoes. Alice had come behind me with extra linens, and she gave a soft cry when she saw Holmes: his leg had been a sight when we first entered the house, but the effort to get him to his bed had caused him to start bleeding again. “It’s all right, Alice,” I reassured her, as I set my basin aside and took her towels. “It looks worse than it is. If you’ll fetch my medical bag for me, please—yes, from my room, good girl—and another lamp from the sitting room, thank you, I shall want more light.”

I helped Alfie ease Holmes to sit against his headboard, and Alice returned a moment later with the requested items. She had already lit the lamp, and Alfie made short work of rearranging Holmes’ furniture so that there would be someplace useful to put it.

I dismissed them before they could take it into their heads to hover uselessly. “Back to Mrs Hudson, both of you, thank you. I’ll ring if we need anything.” I shut Holmes’ door firmly behind them, so that he might retain some shred of privacy.

“Watson,” Holmes said a few minutes later, while I was cutting away his trouser leg. “It’s just a graze.”

“‘Just a graze,’” I muttered, trying to get a better look at the wound. The swelling had increased much more quickly than I liked to see. “Would you like some morphine, or is a mere graze insufficiently serious to justify such extreme measures?”

“ _Watson_ ,” he tried again, but he interrupted himself with a hiss when I lifted his leg, pushing a stack of towels beneath both to prop it up and to catch the mess that would come from irrigating it.

“Yes, that might hurt,” I belatedly warned him.

“I observed,” he grimaced. “Watson, I am telling you, it’s just a graze.”

“You were _shot_ , Holmes.”

“Only a little.”

I was well past angry with him. “You can’t do this again.”

“Can’t do _what_ again? You may have observed, I wasn’t the one who fired the shot.”

“Yes, I did observe. I also observed you cornering a desperate man, and for what? For a fool’s pride.”

“For Violet,” he corrected me. “I took the case for Violet.”

“For _Violet?”_ I asked, outraged. “And if it had come out worse, just _what_ would have become of Violet, I ask you?”

“Why should _anything—_ ” he began, but was interrupted by Mrs Hudson’s rap at the door.

She came straight in, and I twitched a sheet over Holmes’ bare leg. Alice came meekly behind her, bearing a steaming, lidded pot.

“Gentlemen,” she said gravely, evaluating the room with a steely eye. We watched silently, awaiting judgment like naughty schoolboys, while she took in the discarded bandages on the floor and Holmes’ trouser leg beside them; my shirtsleeves rolled to my elbows and Holmes’ hands crusted with blood; the loose sheet over Holmes’ leg, already dampening from the cold compress on his thigh. A pink stain bloomed into the white.

Her lips tight, she came over to the bed and touched the edge of the sheet. Holmes and I each immediately put out a hand to hold it down.

“It’s just a graze,” Holmes said haughtily, and I bit down on my urge to push him bodily out the window. She, too, seemed unimpressed.

“It’s an ugly sight,” I apologised, “not at all fit—” I stopped talking when she raised her eyebrows at me.

“One of my household has been _shot_ ,” she said, as if she were a country squire’s lady, or even the squire himself, and had rights to know all the doings among her people. She locked eyes with Holmes, and after a short battle of wills, he let out an aggrieved sigh and pulled back the edge of the sheet for her.

She studied the wound, still half-obscured by blood, then lifted the compress to see beneath. “Well, I’ve seen worse,” she pronounced, “although you certainly won’t enjoy that healing up.” She put a comforting hand on Holmes’ shoulder. I lifted a bewildered eyebrow at him; he looked no less unsettled than I. “Do you expect the trouble to follow you home?”

It belatedly occurred to me that she hadn’t been particularly shaken when a client was outright murdered on our landing. She would have been within her rights to put us both out on our ears for bringing such trouble under her roof, and yet she had not. I looked to Holmes, suddenly uncertain in the face of Mrs Hudson’s surprising calm.

“No, Mrs Hudson,” Holmes answered her, “it was just the one man, acting alone. He’s already in Lestrade’s custody, thanks to Watson here, and likely to stay there. We wouldn’t bring that kind of trouble on you.”

Her expression suggested that she doubted his ability to make that promise. “I see.” She turned to me. “And do you require assistance? I have a capable pair of hands, and Alice here wouldn’t mind the opportunity to learn.” She cast a stern eye at the maid, and she, recognising her cue, nodded.

I was completely speechless for a moment. “No, I… I have this well in hand. But thank you,” I added hastily.

She nodded and squeezed Holmes’ shoulder. He still looked completely bewildered. “Then I should get back downstairs and tell Alfie we’re not expecting trouble. Oh, and Mr Holmes,” she said, fixing him with a stern glare, “you behave for the doctor. That’ll take long enough to heal, without you making it worse. And _you_ , doctor,” she said, quelling whatever small amusement I had been feeling at Holmes’ chastisement, “you’ll do well to remember where you left your bedside manner. The poor man’s been _shot._ ” Before I could gather myself to protest my innocence, she turned away, Alice trailing meekly behind her.

With the door safely shut behind them, I turned to Holmes in amazement. “Did you have any idea?”

“An inkling.” His expression suggested that he was more thrown than he was admitting. Ever fastidious, he asked for a cloth with which to clean his hands, and I handed him one before pulling back the sheet again.

“No, no morphine,” he said, when he saw me remove the vial from my bag. “I need a clear head.”

“Why? Is the case not solved?” It didn’t seem to me that there were any loose threads, but I had missed things before. Loose threads or no, however, Holmes, was in no shape to head back out into the fray. I’d barricade the door if need be.

He ignored my question. “I _have_ thought about what would happen to Violet in the event of my death, you know.”

I sighed, but pulled a chair nearer his bed and exchanged the morphine vial for cocaine; he would need some kind of numbing agent for me to clean the wound effectively. “And what have you concluded? That you’re essential to her well-being, I hope.”

He made an irritated noise. “Watson, do you really think I wish to see her thrown upon the mercy of strangers should anything happen to either of us? In the event of my death, everything I have goes to you. Or, if you fail to survive me, what I have goes to her in trust, with my brother as trustee.”

I paused in my preparations and stared at him. “Holmes—”

“It’s not riches, but it should be enough to help with her schooling. Or to settle you into practice, although I should think you have enough saved for that already. I promised you she wouldn’t see the inside of an orphanage while I was alive, Watson; I will do everything in my power to prevent it in the event of my death, as well.”

“Holmes, your generosity—yes, your _generosity_ , in addition to… _this_ , don’t think that I don’t know you’ve been paying Mrs Hudson something for the nursery, and have been all along. And so many other things—it’s made a world of difference, truly. I can’t thank you enough for that, and I shan’t try.”

“Good,” he said stiffly, “I haven’t been doing it for your thanks.”

“But if you think my concerns are financial ones, Holmes, you’re much mistaken.”

He studied me. “Then what? Violet is quite attached to you now, and you to her. And you wouldn’t lack for assistance in raising her. You have both Miss Burke and Mrs Hudson—howsoever much she protests, she wouldn’t desert you. And in any case it wouldn’t come to that; I daresay you’d be married within the year.”

“I _beg_ your pardon?” The thought of celebrating my wedding with Holmes fresh in his grave turned my stomach.

“The women of London are gasping for willing and marriageable men, Watson, and _look_ at you. I don’t know why you’re acting so shocked, it’s preposterous to think you’d remain single. As matters stand, I would have given it only another two years—” He jerked and hissed. “ _Gently_. Please. I _have_ been shot, remember.”

“You’ve been _shot,”_ I said under my breath, but I went more gently in applying cocaine to his injury. “Not ten minutes ago you wouldn’t stop calling it a graze. Explain to me, if you please, your prediction that I will marry within two years _as matters stand_.”

“What is there to explain? You always intended to marry someday, Violet will be old enough to require a feminine influence, and your bank balance will be no impediment by then.”

“Is that why you’ve been taking these commercial cases? So I could _marry_.”

“I’ve been taking commercial cases so you wouldn’t have to worry about Violet’s welfare. By natural extension, that also leads to your eventual marriage. You have a daughter, Watson! Or as good as, don’t you dare call her your ward, not to me. It’s only natural that you’d want a mother for her.”

“If Violet needs a feminine influence, then I can hire a governess! Isn’t that what they’re for? What on earth would I want with a wife?”

He paused, looking at me in some perplexity. “I’m told they smell nice,” he offered primly.

I laughed, because now he was being ridiculous. “I am blessed to live in a household of people who bathe regularly. I assure you, I do not want for people who smell nice.”

“I smell nice?”

“ _Yes_ , you smell nice. But as put out as I would be if you placed me in the inconvenient position of needing to marry, I wasn’t thinking of myself.”

He looked perplexed. “Then what?”

I stared back at him, puzzled in my own turn. “Holmes,” I prompted, but he shook his head. He genuinely seemed not to know. “Holmes, Violet would be devastated.”

Grief briefly passed over his features, and he turned his face from me to hide it. When he turned back, his expression was aloof. “She’s young. In three months’ time, she won’t even rememb—” He gasped and clutched at my arm. _“Watson.”_

I pulled my hands away, livid that he could believe that, and ashamed with myself that I had inadvertently hurt him again. I shut my eyes while Holmes’ breathing steadied out, his hand still tight on my elbow.

“If you will insist on saying such ridiculous things,” I told him when I had calmed myself, “I’m going to require you to be quiet until I’m done.” He began a protest, but I cut him off with a peremptory, “Quiet!”

This time he held his tongue, even if he glared at me balefully.

He was still holding my elbow; I moved his hand to my knee to give me more freedom to work. To my surprise he left it there, his fingers curling loosely into my thigh. I touched his hand in silent apology, regretful that I had shown such poor control. “Morphine?” I suggested. “This is deeper than I first thought, and cleaning it is going to be unpleasant.”

He emphatically shook his head, and I tried not to sigh at his obstinacy.

Even with a further application of cocaine—and without the distraction of our conversation—it was impossible to avoid hurting him, and I monitored him closely for evidence that he had changed his mind about his choice of anesthetics. But beyond the occasional tightening of his fingers on my thigh, he refused to give any further sign of his discomfort. As much as I hated those twitches, however, I did not rush my work: the true hazard was infection, and the damaged tissues were embedded with charred foreign matter that might later fester.

“There, that’s the worst of it,” I said, when I was finally satisfied. “It’s somewhat worse than I first hoped—not strictly a graze, as the bullet tore the muscle. But it should still heal cleanly, with a little luck and more care.” Holmes watched me, stonily silent. “I’d like to bring the swelling down some more before I suture it, if you don’t mind.” Again he didn’t respond, and I sighed, regretful of the anger between us. I turned away to tidy my tools and my thoughts.

When I finished, I resumed my seat by his bed, and cleaned his blood from my nail beds with a fresh cloth. “Do you remember Violet when she first came here?”

“Am I allowed to speak now?” he asked.

“Please.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “Of course I do. Smaller and more biddable.”

I smiled to myself, because Holmes’ dedication to teaching her French and German had created a tiny mutineer who could chant her defiance in three languages. 

“She was also unhappy. You were nearly the only person she’d smile for, you might remember. Miss Burke commented on it, and so did Mrs Hudson. They didn’t think it natural, in a child that age.”

“You’re surely not suggesting she was mourning her parents. A military family in India? It’s unlikely she saw her parents often enough to know who they were.”

“Then her first ayah, perhaps. But whatever the cause, she was not a happy child, Holmes. It’d be far worse now. You may only have signed on to be her godfather, but face facts, man. If I’m as good as a father to her now, then so are you.”

He frowned at me. “I’m her godfather?”

I frowned back at him. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. When did I become her godfather?”

“That first week. We came back from that hell-struck orphanage, and you swore you’d never let her see the inside of such a place, not while you lived.” I paused, but he only continued to examine me. “Did you not?”

“I did,” he allowed.

“Did you not mean it? Because just earlier you spoke as if—”

“Yes, yes,” he cut me off, “I meant it.”

“Well, then.” The matter seemed simple enough to me.

He, however, continued to frown. “And you think of me as a father to her.”

“No, _she_ does,” I corrected him, because that was the proper point.

“But you don’t disagree.”

“No. Should I?” He continued to stare. “Not her only father, mind you. I expect you to share the honours, even if you are her favourite.”

Still watching me, he nodded once, as if I had confirmed something. “And I smell nice.”

“I— what?”

“Does Mrs Hudson smell nice?” he pressed.

I had no idea when this conversation had gone so severely off the rails. “I’m sure she has a perfectly... pleasant... sort of smell,” I attempted. “At least for those who might care to… smell her.”

“But I _do_ smell nice.”

“Of course you do.” It seemed a genuine point of concern for him.

“Watson,” he said, abruptly sitting forward, and I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back against the headboard again. He yielded, but placed his hand over mine. “Then you come here,” he commanded, pulling at my leg with this other hand.

“Holmes,” I protested, but I abandoned my chair and sat where he directed me, on the edge of his bed, well up toward its head, my hip pressing his.

He threaded his fingers in mine, and suddenly he was cradling my hand in his against his chest. My throat went dry. “I wish to try an experiment,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “You may blame the morphine, if you like.” I watched in fascination as he nervously moistened his lips, then leaned—

I jerked back, glancing to both sides, the door. “Holmes,” I said severely. “What are you trying to distract me from now?”

“Nothing,” he protested. His grip tightened and relaxed around mine, but he didn’t release my hand, nor did I attempt to take it back. “Or rather, one hopes ‘everything,’” he added wryly, “but I suspect that’s only a conceit of poetry and insipid novels.”

I eyed him. “When have _you_ ever read an insipid novel?”

“One hears things,” he said airily. I formed the instant and firm conviction that he _had_ read one at some point, and I made a note to bedevil him about it later. “But that’s beside the point. I wish to shed light on a question.”

“What question?”

“Of what you mean when you say I smell nice.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed. He stayed where he was, neither advancing nor retreating.

“But you haven’t _had_ any morphine,” I pointed out.

“I haven’t,” he affirmed. His smile was rueful. “Yet you may still blame it, if you wish.”

I attempted to cover my surprise, and could only hope that I was successful. His proposed falsehood wasn’t unprecedented—I had before seen him offer a covering lie as a kindness, to preserve one person’s illusions of another. It pained me to learn that Holmes thought I might prefer to believe in a lie than in him.

It was perhaps that which decided me.

Her Majesty’s Army is not known for the practice, but even in the Army men might still turn to other men for comfort or distraction, when posted well away from home, in a place with few local women. In the last months before Maiwand, before so much had come to so brutal an end, I too, had indulged. I did not consider myself above the practice, nor was I repulsed by it.

Kissing, however, had not much come into it.

I moved closer, giving him the opportunity to retreat, and when he held his ground, his breath unsteady against my cheek, I brushed my lips against his. He chased the movement, and so I kissed him again, and again after that. _“John,”_ he said against my mouth, his hand hard on my thigh, and it became unclear who was kissing whom.

When I pulled back, his heart was racing under our joined hands.

Its beat was strong and emphatic, entirely unlike the rapid, hollow flutter of a body emptying itself of blood, and yet I looked behind me anyway, uncertain what I would see.

I could see only the sheet.

“It’s just a graze, John,” he said gently. “Watson,” he added a moment later, more sharply. With a sound of frustration he leaned forward to pull away the sheet, then the compress covering his thigh. Something in me eased at the sight, even despite the swelling, the bruising, and the obvious need for stitches. I had somehow been imagining much worse. I turned back to him.

I could have sworn my breath had not been coming so rapidly before. I ducked my chin and closed my eyes against his concern.

“It’s all right, John,” he said, his hand cupping my cheek, but I took his wrist and pulled his hand into my lap, unable to abide being comforted like a child. A moment later I felt his forehead touch mine, solid and _there,_ and I leaned into it, able to accept that much, if no more. “John,” he soothed, “it’s all right.”

“No more commercial cases,” I said, disliking the way my voice sounded.

“All right,” he agreed. He squeezed my hands, where I held his tightly gripped in my lap.

“Take a case because it’s worthy of your talents, or because you’re needed, but not because—”

“—yes, John, yes, all right. No more commercial cases, I promise.”

“Fixed fees,” I insisted. I still could not look at him.

“Not everyone can afford—”

“Then waive them when it pleases you,” I insisted stiffly, determined not to beg.

He huffed, but there was amusement in it. He pulled his hands free from my grip and wrapped his long fingers securely around the back of my skull, his forehead still against mine. He stroked my hair. “I wonder what you must think of me, to believe me so easily swayed by the offer of riches.”

I shook my head, unable to answer. I knew I was being irrational, knew that he was no more likely to be harmed in one kind of case as another, _knew_ I could trust him to keep his promise, and yet—

“Fixed fees, then,” he agreed, and in spite of myself, I took a deep, shuddering breath. “But if someone chooses to write us a handsome cheque in gratitude,” he warned sternly, “do not think I’ll be turning it down.”

I nodded, eager to agree to whatever pleased him, now that he had given me this. “Of course not,” I attempted, and I steeled myself to look at him. “Violet will require hair ribbons. Very many of them, I presume.”

He laughed. “If there are any left in London for me to purchase after you’ve finished.”

He examined my face, and then he kissed me. There was no expectant tension in it this time, just comfort. I relaxed into it, touching his sides. Nothing came of it—I felt strangely wrung out, and he couldn’t have been much better—and yet I did not mind at all. Eventually we came to rest, forehead to forehead again, breathing together.

Presently I pulled back. “Well?” I belatedly realized that neither Holmes nor I had replaced his compress, and I rectified it, chiding myself for my inattention.

“Well, what?”

“Well, what were the results of your experiment? Do I smell nice?”

My question startled a laugh from him. “My dear boy, you’ve confused the question. That one was settled the very hour you first walked through my door.”

“Oh, the very hour, was it?”

“Mm. I’m a keen observer, as I believe you noticed at the time.”

“I did,” I agreed. He had quite absorbed my attention with that attribute, in fact, and had never truly released it since.

“No, the question under consideration just now was whether _I_ smell nice.”

I smiled. “Ah, yes. And what has Sherlock Holmes deduced?”

“Well, you did say so. Twice.”

“Observant,” I approved.

“Thank you,” he said with genuine pleasure. “And you don’t _seem_ repulsed…”

“‘Don’t seem repulsed,’” I said under my breath, because he was fishing now. I moved toward him, and he readily tilted his chin up to meet me. I kissed him again, slow and filthy, bringing three continents’ worth of experience to bear on the issue. By the time I finished with him, he was trembling under my hands.

“John,” he said, sounding somewhat strangled. He was doing his best to appear unaffected, and was failing miserably. “It’s most inconvenient, but I regret I have to beg off.” The man looked embarrassed, bless him. “You see, I’ve been shot.”

I snorted, eminently grateful that he was still here to try me with his ridiculousness. “I had noticed that, yes.” But I could see the pain and fatigue catching up to him, and I regretted adding my own emotional upheaval to the mix. “Shall I stitch you up now?”

“Please,” he said, resting back against his headboard again. “Goodness knows what anyone has told Miss Burke. I trust her not to lose her head, but I would like to see for myself that Violet is not upset.”

“Of course,” I said, relieved that Holmes was no longer denying the dependence of Violet’s well-being on his. “I’ll just get you presentable and bring her down to see you, how’s that?”

He nodded his agreement, and I set to work.

By the time I finished, he was half-dreaming from the combined effects of his fatigue and the morphine—thankfully, he had finally consented to take a little. I would have been content to leave him to doze, but he stirred himself and re-iterated his desire to see Violet.

“All right. I’ll ring for Alice to clear away all this—” I wished to spare Violet the sight of Holmes’ blood, although I was uncertain she would understand its significance— “and then I’ll remove your chemical equipment to my room.”

“Your room?”

“Your lock can’t do Violet any good if she’s in here with you,” I pointed out. Holmes nodded vaguely, a twitch of his fingers indicating that I may do as I saw fit. “Then I’ll step upstairs and bring her down to see for herself that her Uncle Sherlock is all right.”

His eyes, suddenly not so dreamy after all, snapped to mine. He studied me silently.

I raised an eyebrow. “Of course, if you’d rather continue as ‘Holmes’ to her, there’s no need to—”

“No, no,” he interrupted me, “that’s fine.”

“I only thought that some of the earlier confusion—”

“Uncle is… fine,” he repeated.

“Good,” I approved.

“You don’t mind?” he asked. When I expressed my confusion, he elaborated, “You’re her cousin.” He didn’t use the word _only_ , but I could hear it.

“What does it matter? I’d suggest she call you her Papa Sherlock, if it wouldn’t raise every eyebrow on the street.”

He stared at me long enough to make me wonder if I had grossly overstepped myself. Then he reached for my hand and gripped it tightly. I laid my other hand over his.

“That’s settled, then,” I suggested and went out into the sitting room and touched the bell, giving us each a moment to compose ourselves.

“Shall I ask for tea to be sent up?” I asked, when I came back.

“Perhaps Mrs Hudson could be imposed upon to put some marmalade on the tray,” he suggested. “Violet likes marmalade.”

“Yes, she does,” I agreed—although Holmes liked it somewhat more—and I began removing his chemical equipment to my room.


End file.
